Finally a new gate secures the children and the kindergarten of EmfundiSweni.

Dear Friends of Golden Sunbeams

How our kindergarten EmfundiSweni got a new gate reads almost like a mystery novel…

Last year we had really brought Nomalizo’s kindergarten in the township of Nomzamo into shape: installed the new roof, renewed the electrical system, freshly painted the inside and outside and finally installed a functional new kitchen. In October we were finally done and the boys and girls from EmfundiSweni were happy with the new, friendlier rooms with a beautiful new kitchen that conjures up delicious lunches.

And then the following happened: At around 1:00 a.m., an Uber taxi drove into the old iron gate of the kindergarten and completely destroyed it.

The driver probably drove at a significantly excessive speed, because not much remains of the gate. EmfundiSweni’s water meter, located in front of the property, was completely destroyed by the impact.

Nomalizo was woken up by the very loud noise, ran into the yard and found the young man, for whom unfortunately any help came too late. As it turned out later, the driver was a young man from Zimbabwe who had just arrived in South Africa a week ago to try his luck here. In Zimbabwe, many more people live below the poverty line.

Together with Nomalizo, we tried to clarify the facts and to find out who would pay for the damage in such a case.

Were the family of the Zimbabwean driver involved in the accident? Only a few family members also live in Nomzamo township and since none of them is currently employed, they would not be able to cover the cost of the damage. Added to this their grief over the loss of the young man.

Unfortunately, our hope that a state agency would be responsible for the repair of a kindergarten entrance gate in the middle of a township has also not come true. In the end, the municipality  at least covered the costs of installing a new water meter.

Since the safety of Nomalizo and the children is our top priority and we absolutely wanted to prevent the new kitchen from being “stolen”, we decided to assume the costs of a new entrance gate ourselves. So first 2 pillars were constructed and then the new steel gate was installed.

In January the new entrance gate was completed and in the end we are very happy that a solid and secure gate now protects the kindergarten from uninvited intruders – now that everything is so beautiful at EmfundiSweni.

Only with your support is it possible for us to react and help relatively quickly, even with unforeseen events like this one. We, the children of EmfundiSweni and the principal Nomalizo say thank you very much!

We send you warm greetings and say goodbye until our March newsletter

Britta und Bernd